Text Size

-

+

reset

POLITICO 44

The FCC is in the early stages of implementing its new net neutrality rules, which aim to prevent Internet service providers from anticompetitive behavior that could undermine innovation or marginalize the consumer.

But as the first complaints start to pile up, the agency has to decide what truly constitutes a net neutrality violation. Since the rules were formally adopted by the commission in December, MetroPCS, the nation’s fifth-largest wireless carrier, became the first company accused of violating the open Internet code.

Public interest groups, including Free Press and the Media Access Project, filed a complaint against the carrier saying its new pricing plan selectively and unfairly caps the usage of some applications — such as Skype or Netflix — and not others.

“Skype and Netflix face a competitive disadvantage to the voice and video services offered by MetroPCS because would-be subscribers must pay an additional fee per month to use them,” the groups state in a letter to the commission.

MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist called the complaints “erroneous.”

“We increased consumer choice by adding two new rate plans that are less expensive and enable consumers to select the service and content they want at a price point they can afford. These new rate plans comply with the FCC’s new rules on open mobile Internet,” Linquist added in a statement.

The company cited this complaint as part of the reason the carrier sued the FCC over its net neutrality regulations.

Today’s most high-profile concerns about the open Internet, as reflected in the MetroPCS issue, are related to carriers blocking third-party voice and video providers such as Skype and Google TV. These third-party providers compete against the ISP’s own service or content or both.

But net neutrality concerns can come in other forms.

Charges levied against Comcast by Zoom Telephonics Inc., a company that makes modems, and Level 3 Communications Inc., a communications company, take a different approach.

Zoom accused Comcast of trying to discourage customers from purchasing modems — instead, getting consumers to lease them from Comcast — by making the barrier to entry too high for modem manufacturers. According to Zoom, Comcast’s equipment certification program and retail modem testing regime impose unreasonable demands.

The Level 3 complaint alleges that Comcast charges an unfair fee for bringing Level 3’s Internet traffic the final mile to Comcast customers. The toll could be called the Netflix tax, because Comcast wants the money as a return on the surge in traffic from the increase in online video consumption.

Comcast denies any wrongdoing in both cases.

The Comcast-Level 3 spat has now become the battleground for an area of network management that carriers are fighting to separate from the net neutrality debate.

Readers' Comments (2)

The FCC needs to be abolished. There is no longer a need for these worthless bunch of socialists/communists in our government. They are nothing more than a mouth piece of Mao oboma. But the leftwing baggers love this part of government because of how the leftwing baggers agenda is propagated.